


To Cast The First Snowball

by ARandomRock



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Domestric, Fortune Cookie, Gen, Light-Hearted, Misuse of equipment, Russian language barrier, Sympathy for the Angel, Zine:Take The Stage - Freeform, rehearsal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26218813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARandomRock/pseuds/ARandomRock
Summary: A big take out meal before dress rehearsal has left the two tropes of winter and spring with a spoiled desert: A fortune cookie, from a Russian sushi place, of all things. Determined to translate and decide upon it, was Tsumugi finds ends up being just the assertive messagehe needs to perform...or cause chaos.Whatever comes first.[Made for A3! Take the Stage zine]
Kudos: 5
Collections: Pluto's Zine Works





	To Cast The First Snowball

**Author's Note:**

> Go download the zine: https://twitter.com/A3TaketheZine/status/1300475314418655232

A piece of paper with written words . Not even the length of his figure. Smaller than a shrine’s talisman yet seemingly carried the same weight. Unsure on how the characters printed over the still slightly-glazed paper were to be read, rotating it around and around to make outletters. Some resembled latin letters, some resembled more closer to some basic Katakana but no full identification could be made. Its investigator had taken it upon himself to at least try to figure out this mystery not just for his own sake but the people he had won the prize off of. 

The ring that enclosed the two janken combatants had fallen in their ranks once the victory had cracked the fortune cookie open. Yet the barrage of questions about what does it say, were replaced with awes, sighs and resentments at the restaurant. The paper was stroked down with his fingers a couple of times, but unable to bring himself to crumble it with the other. . The tribe of the defeated janken player dispersed afterwards but with a comforting hand on his shoulder and white hair tickling his neck, the elder one of his own group posed him the challenge.

_ “Tsumugi, you are not going to simply let their curiosity just stew, are you?” _

Looking over his shoulder and giving a nod, stretched out the fortune to him. Arms now fully draped over his hair, took a look himself at the text.

_ “КТО ИЗ ВАС БЕЗ ГРЕХА, ПЕРВЫЙ БРОСЬ КАМЕНЬ.” _

_ “Ah, that is Russian, I can tell you that. Perhaps you should go chase down the Spring Troupe with this. Itaru has said some interesting things about Russian players... “ _

Tsumugi kept his eyes up looking at the elder actor, but inside he was rolling his eyes. Neither comment was particularly helpful and there was a sense of pride in him to not bend a knee to the troupe he had won the prize from. What kind of showrunner would he be if he gave up his leading role? Bidding Azuma a good night formed a plan of attack during the night on his own.

A plan, however, that came screeching to a halt as he looked at his keyboard at the characters and over at the fortune now crudely taped with all the other troupe and director notes. As the door behind him spread golden light around his station, the tall slim figure of the elder once again appeared behind him. Arms folded with all traces of smugness buried in a shy smile.

_ “Homare wrote that Michael turned to Metatron for advice, even for affairs not of their own kind…” _

Tsumugi’s eyes popped open with shock and he almost took off an inch from the hair. Turning around, from the side slim silhouetted figure of Azuma popped spikey hair and a flicked out arm. Azuma reached around the door frame and flicked on the full light, the glasses partner then took on the stage in front and from his pocket with a grin of genius, rolled out his hand presenting the phone. Almost half spinning it like a cowboy’s gun - and nearly fumbling it.

_ “And life imitates art far more than art imitates life, I come bringing you a tool to solve your foreign problem!” _

Tsumugi gave a soft grin, not at Homare’s declaration but Azuma rubbing his temple behind him in strain. Taking it the phone the same Russian cryllic characters were on a keyboard with a translator screen at the top.

“ _ I managed to deduce that as the place was named Russia Sushi, that this is indeed, Russian! ---” _

Leaving Homare’s gloats of how he was a reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes to Azuma’s ears, transcribed the characters piecemeal. Azuma sometimes having had to poke out a certain character when the two looked the same with the small prints. Even though Homare protested that his phone should be back to him and he should be given the deed, Azuma’s finger silenced him as Tsumugi’s finger landed the last one .

_ “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” _

The pair looked at each other for some sort of direct answer then back at each other. Even with a generic fortune cookie, usually you could delve some understanding out of it. Yet it had appeared that multiple levels of translations had seemingly butchered the real meaning for them. Taking a copy of the translation on a marshmallow-doodled-sticky note, passing over the phone back to Homare. This was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire as Homare pulled from it and went around the world with different types of sayings, metaphors and cultures. Azuma and Tsumugi shifted through the lecture from the wizard of words to some sort of useful meaning they could pass over to the spring troupe.

_ “So...to not throw accusations without knowing oneself? Or to act blameless? Homare...slow down...wait, it is a Christian thing? What did you say? Wind back.” _

Musing over the translation, Homare’s poetic waxings burned down in the background like a candle but did not share any actual light into the fortune. Now he had the source and Azuma had pulled together a solid meaning on the sticky note, there was one last task at hand...to pass on the translation. 

Yet, on his way down to the main room to perhaps find Sakuya, there was hesitation that came over him about the translation. For Tsumugi, it struck him very strangely, not only the serendipity in them having to repeatedly and phonetically practice the name of all these angels but their own story itself. The god-troupe as well, there were...layers that seemed to transcend through languages and puns. These connections gave him the sense of warmth with Homare’s thoughts and sonnets on the matter, even if said mouth had not realised Tsumugi had tuned him out a while ago. 

_ This was some sort of fate, right? _

_ A joke by Azuma? _

This theatre is a melting pot of all stories that each---cutting himself off, from hearing the rumble of plastic bags, following a tired, familiar yawn which soothed Tsumugi’s over thinking. Scratching his head while yawning , Tsumugi asked against his better judgement what he thought of the cookie’s fortune, but whatever theories he had were dropped and cut off by the slowly fluttering and closing of Hisoka’s eyes. Rubbing his sleepy silver hair on his shoulder accompanied by another yawn.

_ “I don’t really know about that...Sometimes a marshmallow is just a marshmallow. The director abandoned us for the yakuza...doesn’t mean she forgot anyway...I hope anyway...there’s so much work on the set...I don’t want to do anymore...” _

Tsumugi blinked at Hisoka’s earnestness, who managed to sleep through all the drama eternally. Not a single word or thought Tsumugi had said penetrated inside the sleeping head’s noggin. Placing a marshmallow in his mouth, shambled over to the propped open front door to which he probably was the door stopper a couple hours ago. Pocketing the translation, supposedly he should rejoin the other half of the troupe. Tasuku had assured both Azuma and him that less people interfering with the set building would smoothen the progress. This was after of course enough feet had tripped over the sleeping roadblock that was Hisoka.Sighing and crawling into himself, Tsumugi whipped around his coat and ease his thinking with work.

Despite Hisoka and supposedly Tasuku’s warning, the work inside the Mankai Company was split into two groups. Azuma, Hisoka and Homare give it their all sitting on their seats, attempting to pinch a holy marshmallow out of the bag. Homare guarding on the other side, ironed and hung up costumes showing off out in the open than in the safety of the back rooms. The other group lead by the set creator himself, Tetsuro Iwai, was much more quiet, noise coming from their tools more than any words between them minus a whispered order. There was however an outlier, since the Yakuza man had passed through, he had dropped off his child for daycare to learn some skills on the set design. Tsumugi, watching the underling lose a fight with the cable ties after a big machine, decided that perhaps he could pull his weight with a calm look.

“ _ Sakoda...you can pop these open like this…” _

Slipping a small key for the dorms in the slot, (he started working on undoing the wires inside the machine.) Yet, as soon as Tsumugi made progress with the wires the underling had darted off to pester the bigger men for a hammer or some wood work or just doing nothing instead. The star was then left with the fancy looking machine, trying to figure out the instructions and where the tubes connected with the pipes. It appeared to be a rudimentary snow machine, (rudimentary in the fact that the instructions were written in Chinese with faded part diagrams). It appears the way the underling skimped out on work, it appeared the Yakuza Boss skimped out on expenses too.

Like an owl turning his head with cautious eyes, Sakoda peaked towards Tsumugi’s direction There was a tiny angry tiger that wanted to roar at Sakoda for not understanding how the scaled down snow machine works, but instead...Behind the machine with the wires, test puffs of atomised water crystals started to pile up. Droplets and remains from Tasuku’s previous attempt. There, just then, his hand slid behind the machine and gathered the wet and useless for now. The thought became of him that he could spare some snow, that is when Tsumugi’s eyes narrowed with a small curl at the ends of his lips that betrayed his serenity. 

_ Let he who is without sin,  _ **_cast the first stone._ **

Throwing the ball of sludge right into Sakoda’s chest, watching the man act as if he was shot, a look of full betrayal in his face. Flicking the machine on as he stumbled back, the finishing blow of the jet of water turned snow blasted into his face. With a thud, Sakoda hit the floor and Tsumugi took cover behind the bulk of the machine. The first snowball was cast. Hisoka was awoken by a stray bullet. Hisoka took his own act of betrayal using Hisoka’s hooded cloak costume as a shield...not quite aware that the height difference made his bare ankles a prime target for Azuma to fill with cold snow. Tsumugi watched the water play out, defending his most key position. Tasuku’s speed would outrun Azuma’s long reach for the piles of forming snow. Whipped with the full strength of his elbow threw the cold baseball at the doctor’s face. This war continued until one last snowball was thrown. Sakoda, finally able to muster up two fistfulls of snow was ready to whip his hands at Tsumugi before the winder trope member ducked out of the way. Sakoda’s face turned terrified and Tsumugi became paralysed with a glare behind him. 

Snow was flicked from the blonde hair and a hand pushed up the glasses until the reflection caught the stage lights.

And a pen stroked another strike off their budget.


End file.
